Family mourns loss of ‘vibrant and bright’ 93-year-old woman killed in West Side hit-and-run

At 93 years old, Ruth Mabin was “a vibrant and bright woman, still very sharp,” her daughter recalls.

On Thursday afternoon, Mabin took a walk to the post office near her home in Austin to send her daughter Celestine Stanton a package.

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She was crossing the street in the 300 block of South Laramie Avenue when she was struck by a Porsche Cayenne that had driven around a stopped car into a bike lane and through a crosswalk, according to Chicago police.

Paramedics performed CPR, but Mabin was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Medical Center. A surveillance camera caught the SUV and the license plate, but police reported no one in custody Friday evening.

“She was still so spry at 93, and that is such a tragic way she had to leave here,” Stanton told the Sun-Times. “She was crossing the street. ... The first car stopped, but the next car came around and hit her as she was crossing the street and ended her precious life.”

Mabin had four children, including Stanton, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

She spent her entire life on the West Side and remained an active member of the community. Mabin worked for the nonprofit Easterseals after retirement but spent most of her adult years working in shops on Madison Street, back when “Madison Street was bustling, way back when they had Woolworth and Goldblatt’s and all that,” her daughter said.

“Still very sharp in the mind,” Stanton said.

Stanton no longer lives in Illinois but said the rest of her siblings are still on the West Side, all living within blocks of their mother. But Stanton said she remained in close contact.

“We had just spoken two days before, and we had talked two hours on the phone that day,” Stanton said. “We usually don’t talk that long, but we talked for two hours that day, and like I said, she was still spry and youthful at 93.”